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Luckily, the EU included substantial anti-circumvention provisions in the DMA. I'm not a lawyer, but based on the excerpts from the regulations below, it seems
by mil22 3y ago
Luckily, the EU included substantial anti-circumvention provisions in the DMA. I'm not a lawyer, but based on the excerpts from the regulations below, it seems likely the EU would have grounds to open legal proceedings against Apple's new rules.
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32022R1925 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELE...
"Article 13: Anti-circumvention
4. The gatekeeper shall not engage in any behaviour that undermines effective compliance with the obligations of
Articles 5, 6 and 7 regardless of whether that behaviour is of a contractual, commercial or technical nature, or of any other
nature, or consists in the use of behavioural techniques or interface design.
7. Where the gatekeeper circumvents or attempts to circumvent any of the obligations in Article 5, 6, or 7 in a manner
described in paragraphs 4, 5 and 6 of this Article, the Commission may open proceedings pursuant to Article 20 and adopt
an implementing act referred to in Article 8(2) in order to specify the measures that the gatekeeper is to implement."
- iSnow 3y agoThe 0.50EUR per-install fee is just obvious malicious compliance. Will be interesting to see how fast the EU reacts to that.
- codexb 3y agoWhat did the circumvent?
- kaba0 3y agoI’m fairly sure Apple did consult a bunch of lawyers, and actually talked through the eu about it.
- pbhjpbhj 3y ago... in order to calculate likely fines so they could decide whether they'd still make a profit. Looks like they're happy to pay fines to maintain their monopoly. /flagrant-speculation That would be following the Microsoft playbook when it comes to corporate crime in the EEA/EU.
- matkoniecz 3y agoThis does not mean they actually follow law. I am pretty sure that FB also has many lawyers, but they were repeatedly violating law. Sometimes clearly, blatantly and openly.
- disiplus 3y agoIt could be, they are technically complying while trying in court to throw out the law.
- closewith 3y agoObviously this is a stalling move, which could be effective for years.
- mil22 3y agoThey definitely consulted a bunch of lawyers. The App Store makes on the order of $100B profit annually. Given that, a reasonable budget for consulting lawyers - on a matter which may result in them losing a substantial amount of that profit - would be massive. Even $1B in attorney fees would be a tiny price to pay to protect that. Yes, we know they talked with the EU, but we don't know the content of those discussions. It's easy to assume they were checking whether their proposed implementation would satisfy the regulators. It's equally likely, even more likely, they were gathering information, posturing and probing to see how the EU would react, to gauge how best to craft their scheme to outwit them and what they could or could not easily get away with. You can hold a negotiation and still screw the other side over afterwards - isn't that actually the best way to do it? Holding a meeting first to learn what cards your opponent has in their hand is just a better way to play any game.
- andrewljohnson 3y agoApple overall makes $100B, not the App Store.
- thedailymail 3y agoThanks for pointing this out. App Store sales (not profit) for 2020 was estimated at around $64B. Apple apparently does not make the profits from the App Store public. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/08/apples-app-store-had-gross-sales-around-64-billion-in-2020.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/08/apples-app-store-had-gross-s...
- politician 3y agoI wouldn't be surprised if it was 99% profit. Operating a glorified FTP service isn't going to dent $64B in revenues.
- brk 3y agoA glorified FTP service with an army of moderators. Still good margins I would suspect, but not just passive income.
- jjcm 3y agoIt's more likely that they felt the cost of challenging this was worth it from a cost/benefit standpoint.
- mrtksn 3y agoI'm sure they did but Apple also Apple is having trouble selling Apple Watches with O2 monitors due to legal reasons.
- kaba0 3y agoThat’s more like playing it safe until there is a definite ruling.
- mrtksn 3y agoThat's now, at some point at in the past their lawyers probably said It's all going to be fine, put the sensor and make it a main feature of the product.
- andy_ppp 3y agoTo be fair they were going to license the tech but instead hired employees of the company whose tech they said they were interested in buying. Allegedly. It is quite often just worth going to court and settling rather than paying extortionate fees forever. It’s very unlikely at Apple’s scale a court will give them a percentage of sale price of an Apple Watch as the headline number would just be too large.
- summerlight 3y agoDuring USB-C debates, Apple reportedly tried to circumvent EU regulation and got an explicit public warning from EU commissioner who read the secret plan from the media outlets. Then they retracted their MFi for USB-C plan. I'm reasonably sure Apple didn't reveal most of their compliance plans to EU, since they will ask Apple to implement the most strict interpretation of the regulation and it would be headaches in the court if there's any evidence that Apple knowingly ignored such requests.
- kingsleyopara 3y ago> Apple reportedly tried to circumvent EU regulation and got an explicit public warning from EU commissioner who read the secret plan from the media outlets. Then they retracted their MFi for USB-C plan Source? This has conspiracy theory written all over it. My take is that the rumor mill was just flat out wrong about this like they often are. EDIT: To be clear here, I don’t deny that an EU commissioner sent a letter but I doubted the existence of these secret (and rumored) plans that prompted it e.g. seems out of character for Apple given iPads have had USB C for some time without such restrictions.
- ClumsyPilot 3y agoIt’s a conspiracy theory to allege that a major corporation would intentionally break the law? I mean I guess technically executives did conspire to break the law, so correct, they do that all the time.
- gmerc 3y agoMany times. Gotta love people so brainwashed they can’t imagine government interfering with big tech https://www.reuters.com/technology/exclusive-eus-vestager-warns-apple-against-using-privacy-security-limit-2021-07-02/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/exclusive-eus-vestager-wa...
- silverlyra 3y agohi, I also read this website and sometimes comment on it. after I read your comment, I ran the query “apple usb-c eu commissioner warning” through an internet search engine, and I found this article – https://www.macrumors.com/2023/05/04/eu-warns-apple-about-limiting-usb-c-iphone-cables/ https://www.macrumors.com/2023/05/04/eu-warns-apple-about-li... > It was rumored in February that Apple may be planning to limit charging speeds and other functionality of USB-C cables that are not certified under its "Made for iPhone" program. […] In response to this rumor, European Commissioner Thierry Breton has sent Apple a letter warning the company that limiting the functionality of USB-C cables would not be permitted and would prevent iPhones from being sold in the EU when the law goes into effect. I would posit that a commenter with a sincere wish to dispel “conspiracy theories” might instead take a moment to do that search themselves instead of posting this (pardon me) inflammatory remark!
- freeAgent 3y agoThey definitely talked with their lawyers and the EU regulators, but this doesn’t mean that where Apple ended up today was mutually agreed. They very likely ended up in disagreement and basically told their EU regulators to take them to court if they don’t like it. This happens all the time.
- zpeti 3y agoRemember that Meta actually followed GDPR law in terms of getting constent for personalised ads, and the irish courts even said that Meta was doing things legally, and then the EU courts decided Meta was actually doing illegal things, and fined Meta. So there can be multiple layers to this, and ultimately I don't think the EU really works as a robust legal system any more, there are so many politically driven cases where the courts follow the politics not the law.
- impossiblefork 3y agoThe Irish DPA is well-known for it laxity. There is a reason why it is regularly overruled.
- hnbad 3y agoIreland is trying to attract overseas businesses by being as "business friendly" as possible even if it means shafting local businesses and workers. This includes half-assing any EU regulations to the fullest extent possible and having very low taxes. The Irish DPA is a prime example of this.
- MoonlitKnight 3y agoThere is some irony in half-assing something to the fullest extent.
- turquoisevar 3y agoThat wouldn’t explain the Irish courts affirming the DPA’s decisions on this. Unless you also want to argue that the Irish courts are compromised of course.
- benzible 3y agoLook at the long list of massive fines levied on the US tech giants for GDPR violations [1]. Every one of them consulted lawyers (and likely substantially ignored their advice). [1] https://www.enzuzo.com/blog/biggest-gdpr-fines https://www.enzuzo.com/blog/biggest-gdpr-fines
- Wowfunhappy 3y agoSo, why do you think Apple is doing this? Presumably their lawyers aren't stupid and Apple does not want to be fined 10% of their worldwide annual turnover.
- whamlastxmas 3y agoIt’s “see what we can get away with” tactics in addition to stalling
- Maxion 3y agoYep, the app store is also very profitable for them so they can afford to have this go to the courts. They want the minimum amount of regulation possible, so they first lobby the regulators to apply as little regulation as possible and that the regulation that is applied is as vague as possible. Then when it comes time for implementation, they make an implementation that isn't exactly 100% in accordance with the regulation and wait to be taken to court. Then they get to argue with a judge related to what is and isn't in accordance with the regulation. If they get lucky, the judge will rule partly to them, which gives them less strict regulation. The EU lawmakers can then re-vamp the law to make it stricter, and the process continues again.
- spacebanana7 3y agoI wonder whether Apple would rather lose the EU or lose the App Store monopoly. The EU might not be worth 10% of annual turnover.
- Wowfunhappy 3y agoBut Apple would only be losing the monopoly in the EU. The theoretical maximum amount this could cost Apple is 100% of EU app store revenue. If Apple pulls out of the EU, they will definitely lose that EU app store revenue, and will additionally lose all EU hardware revenue.
- spacebanana7 3y ago
- echelon 3y ago[flagged]
- infotainment 3y agoFlagging is just if you get downvoted enough, really. Posting spicy enough takes will generally get you flagged, but that's just how it goes sometimes. FWIW I largely agree with you; a duopoly is only one more choice than a monopoly, and both Google and Apple have done a variety of things that annoy me. If I could pick a third option I would, but it's essentially impossible to enter the market at this point.
- Nevermark 3y agoI suspect most people agree with your sentiments, but not with them phrased as Apple-specific royal decrees, as apposed to general principles. Anti-competitive law continually lags behind accelerating cycles of tech ecosystem centralization, while the scale and number of these ecosystems goes up, and the number of significant competitors in each goes down. The "open internet" is now a myriad of visible and invisible gates, walls, dossiers, coordinated action, coercive frictions, manipulative "services", and taxes scaling on our productivity (instead of proportional to value provided to us), raised by fewer and fewer owners operating across more and more dimensions of our lives.
- kmeisthax 3y agoFor once in my life, the word "anti-circumvention" actually means something pro-consumer.
- jerbear4328 3y agoThis anti-circumvention against DRM-loving companies is great, give them a taste of their own medicine.
- mmaunder 3y agoApple is going full frontal attack and saying the DMA creates security risks in the headline, and then repeating that messaging throughout the article. Hard to believe the ECJ is going to stand by and watch Apple convince millions that the EU is working to harm their constituents security but that Apple is here to save them.
- rnikander 3y agoYup. They could have security by allowing the user to see and control the sandboxing that the operating system imposes on the apps. The app store is not required, but they act like it is.
- IshKebab 3y agoNot only that, they're going to try and scare users away from third party app stores with warning dialogs: > The changes also include new disclosures informing EU users of the risks associated with using alternatives to the App Store’s secure payment processing. There are 22 instances of the word "risks" on that page. Pathetic.
- amelius 3y agoIf this creates security risks, then why is the Web somehow ok or otherwise not shut down?